Article on Injuries

A couple of weeks ago there was an article in the paper about a girl who was running 55 miles a week and became injured. It's common knowledge that after you go over thirty miles a week you open yourself up to injury. Eventually though to continue to be successful ones mileage and intensity must increase. If done slowly allowing the body to adapt it is doable. Also, some athletes are just more phyically capable of handling the mileage. I bring this up because later in the article it mentions that the girl is also a cheerleader, which begs the question- did she hurt herself cheerleading or running? Often times when runners face an injury it is really easy to blame running when the initial injury might be from something else and running aggravated it. It could be that a combination of the two activities caused the injury. If the girl is going to continue running she has several options: 1. Quit cheerleading 2. Reduce mileage and continue cheerleading.
I would encourage you to do as many activities as you would like in the off season, but once the season is underway remember that you are working hard and need to be careful with outside activities - that is if you are a serious runner and racer. If not, knock yourself out.

See you Feb. 25. Get cleared! This promises to be a great season.